These are the good old days

NPR ran a long feature this morning about how bad people think the economy is — gas prices cutting into wallets, falling house prices, health-care costs, tight credit, creeping inflation.

The real bad news is… we ain’t seen nothing yet. Unemployment is still beneath what used to be called “full employment.”

Labor and politicians could only dream of 5% unemployment in the 80s and 90s. Unless we see a massive boom in export manufacturing (vabuuely possible with the dollar at $1.60 to the euro) the unemployment rate is headed back towards 8%. At which point today’s chorus of woe is going to sound, retrospect, like “Yellow Submarine.”